Monday afternoon. Kitty brings Jamie some bad news.

[x-crowdofone.livejournal.com]

Set after these e-mails; Kitty tracks Jamie down by the arduous process of going to his room, and they complain about her parents, decide to try to fit three months of dating into the next two weeks, and plan a tropical vacation for when they're out of college and world-famous.



Kitty had been good - she hadn't skipped class immediately after getting her mother's emails. Instead she had patiently sat through the lecture, although she couldn't tell anyone what it had been on, and then ran off to find Jamie.

Jamie was, conveniently enough, relaxing in his room. He sat up, discarding his book, when she came in--but his happy smile transmuted into a worried expression after he got a good look. "Kitty? Is something the matter?"

Kitty looked halfway between angry and upset. "Got an email from my mother," she said without any preamble, dropping down onto his bed. "She's making me come home for the summer."

"The whole summer?" He scooted forward and started massaging her shoulders. "That's . . . argh. When?"

Kitty dropped her head in a half nod, letting her hair fall away from her shoulders. "Right after finals. I'm supposed to get on a plane on the first and we're not going to talk about when I come back until August, she said. God, my mother is so frustrating."

"I can tell. You're all in knots back here." He sighed. "We're gonna miss birthdays and our anniversary. And, y'know, with the going crazy from not seeing each other for two months. This bites."

"Three months," Kitty said in something frightfully close to a whine. "Three months of my mother and my father, and she's finally let me know that the divorce is final and dad's not living there any more which means I'm going to get to play parental ping pong and I don't want to leave you!"

"I don't want you to go. Your parents are insane." He leaned forward and kissed the back of her neck. "We could sneak me into your luggage?"

"Doubt you'd fit," Kitty said, leaning back against him. "How about I just don't get on the plane?"

"Mm . . . I wish." Jamie abandoned the massage to slip his arms around her waist, holding her close. "But then they'd probably come out here and make a gigantic scene, and you'd still end up having to go, and then it'd be worse because they'd be pissed at you all the way back."

"Yeah," Kitty said, and restrained the urge to sniffle. "It'll just be the summer, and then I'll be back..."

"And I'll still be here. And there's letters, and e-mail, and the phone, and all sorts of modern communications stuff while you're gone . . . it won't be that bad." He paused. "Well, okay, yes it will, it'll be horrible. I'll miss you every minute. But we'll live." He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "And we can try to fit three months of stuff into the next couple weeks, how about?"

That did get a little sniffle out of her. "Yeah, that sounds... sounds wonderful." She turned her head to get a proper kiss. "Going to miss you so much."

Jamie obliged. "Ohh, so am I," he murmured when they came up for air. "I could really get tired of that thing your parents do where they completely rearrange your life without asking what you think."

"You're telling me," Kitty said. "And my mom ended up getting snippy at me, too." She sighed. "I mean, she was right, I was going to try and get my dad to say I didn't have to go, but still..."

"It's no fair when they can read your mind. That's just overkill." He smiled, and brushed another kiss along her jaw. "So what do you want to do tonight? Since we'd better get a move on, we've got three months to account for here."

"Something beyond silly, I think," she said. "VanHelsing, I think, so I can get a better look at this corset thing you want me in."

"Mm. You won't find me complaining. Heckling, maybe, if it's really bad."

"Well, that would go along with the silliness, I think."

"Most definitely. I bet my dialogue's funnier, too. And tomorrow I can bring you breakfast and we'll talk about what we want to do the rest of the day."

"Sounds wonderful," Kitty said. "But for now..." She glanced at her watch. "I should probably actually go to my next class. Stupid finals."

"Meh. I guess you should. College soon, hopefully less finals then."

"Some how, given the courses I've been taking with Dr. McCoy's supervision, I doubt it. Just new and different finals."

"Bleah. We'll look back on it six years from now and laugh?"

Kitty laughed. "Indeed. Of course, by then you'll be a world famous rights activist, and I'll be some bizarre amalgamation of a scientist, and I'm sure we'll have new stress. But at least it'll be different stress."

"Ah, but we'll be rich and famous and stuff, and we'll be able to fly off to tropical places and laze around in the sun."

"Oh, that would be wonderful..." Pouting slightly, Kitty pulled away from Jamie, standing up. "We'll go and laugh at the "beautiful people" and drink fruity drinks with umbrellas in them."

"Once we get bored with just staying in the hotel room." Jamie grinned. "We can run up gigantic room service tabs and clean out the minibar."

Kitty arched an eyebrow, but giggled. "I'd say it's a plan, eventually." She leaned down to kiss him softly. "I'll find you once I'm done with classes."

"I'll get the tickets, and then sit around being all easy to find." He smiled. "See if you can get them to cut a couple of review sessions on grounds of redundancy, so you can be done quicker?"

"I can probably do that," she said with a nod. "If I don't know all of the material by now, I probably won't learn anything new today."

"You knew all the material two weeks ago. Cutest supergenius ever." He stole one last kiss. "Scoot, though. They won't be sympathetic if you show up late."

"Ta." She waved as she headed out the door. "Love you!"

"Love you too."